Drafthouse Films has announced the Blu-ray release of the full-length cut of the 1979 sci-fi/horror hybrid The Visitor, starring John Huston, Shelley Winters, Glenn Ford, Lance Henriksen, Franco Nero and Sam Peckinpah. The film is also being re-released in theaters for a limited engagement in major markets this Halloween. The Blu-ray edition is set to follow in January, 2014.

Official Synopsis: Legendary Hollywood director/actor John Huston (The Maltese Falcon; Treasure Of The Sierra Madre) stars as an intergalactic warrior battling alongside a cosmic Christ figure against a demonic eight-year-old girl and her pet hawk, as the fate of the universe hangs in the balance.

In the dawn of '70s American blockbusters, European production companies emerged stateside, attempting to recreate box office gold by cloning Hollywood. The infamous Supreme Court-banned Jaws copy Great White, The Exorcist-esque Beyond the Door and countless others were packaged for export and the burgeoning drive-in circuit. Producer Ovidio G. Assonitis and director/alleged bodybuilder Michael J. Paradise's TheVisitor stands as perhaps the most ambitious of all, taking its inspiration by artfully fusing The Omen, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Birds, Rosemary's Baby, The Fury and Star Wars alongside a baffling cast that includes Shelley Winters (Night of the Hunter), Glenn Ford (Superman), Lance Henriksen (Aliens), Franco Nero (Django) and Sam Peckinpah (director of The Wild Bunch).

The result is not so much a carbon copy of these films, but rather an entertainingly hallucinatory and inscrutable mash-up that repertory cinema programmers around the country have rediscovered for late-night bookings. "Just when you think you've nailed down which direction the film is heading in, it completely shatters your notion of the time-space continuum," says LA art-house The Cinefamily. The Village Voice also calls the film "ridiculously entertaining [and] a schizophrenic mother of all '70's drive-in oddities."

"This film is from another time, another place and a wholly different dimension," says Drafthouse Films Creative Director Evan Husney, "and contains the highest JDPM (jaw-drops-per-minute) ratio out of any movie we've ever encountered. The Visitor is a repertory mainstay at the Alamo Drafthouse and is truly one of the most joyfully delirious theatrical experiences we've unleashed on our audiences. The world wasn't ready for this film in 1979, and it still may not be. Regardless, we are ecstatic to reintroduce cinema's most colossally bizarro achievement. Ever."

The Blu-ray release of The Visitor features a new HD restoration from the original film materials. Complete tech specs and special features have yet to be revealed.

Drafthouse Films has announced the Blu-ray release of the full-length cut of the 1979 sci-fi/horror hybrid The Visitor, starring John Huston, Shelley Winters, Glenn Ford, Lance Henriksen, Franco Nero and Sam Peckinpah. The film is also being re-released in theaters for a limited engagement in major markets this Halloween. The Blu-ray edition is set to follow in January, 2014.

Official Synopsis: Legendary Hollywood director/actor John Huston (The Maltese Falcon; Treasure Of The Sierra Madre) stars as an intergalactic warrior battling alongside a cosmic Christ figure against a demonic eight-year-old girl and her pet hawk, as the fate of the universe hangs in the balance.

In the dawn of '70s American blockbusters, European production companies emerged stateside, attempting to recreate box office gold by cloning Hollywood. The infamous Supreme Court-banned Jaws copy Great White, The Exorcist-esque Beyond the Door and countless others were packaged for export and the burgeoning drive-in circuit. Producer Ovidio G. Assonitis and director/alleged bodybuilder Michael J. Paradise's TheVisitor stands as perhaps the most ambitious of all, taking its inspiration by artfully fusing The Omen, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Birds, Rosemary's Baby, The Fury and Star Wars alongside a baffling cast that includes Shelley Winters (Night of the Hunter), Glenn Ford (Superman), Lance Henriksen (Aliens), Franco Nero (Django) and Sam Peckinpah (director of The Wild Bunch).

The result is not so much a carbon copy of these films, but rather an entertainingly hallucinatory and inscrutable mash-up that repertory cinema programmers around the country have rediscovered for late-night bookings. "Just when you think you've nailed down which direction the film is heading in, it completely shatters your notion of the time-space continuum," says LA art-house The Cinefamily. The Village Voice also calls the film "ridiculously entertaining [and] a schizophrenic mother of all '70's drive-in oddities."

"This film is from another time, another place and a wholly different dimension," says Drafthouse Films Creative Director Evan Husney, "and contains the highest JDPM (jaw-drops-per-minute) ratio out of any movie we've ever encountered. The Visitor is a repertory mainstay at the Alamo Drafthouse and is truly one of the most joyfully delirious theatrical experiences we've unleashed on our audiences. The world wasn't ready for this film in 1979, and it still may not be. Regardless, we are ecstatic to reintroduce cinema's most colossally bizarro achievement. Ever."

The Blu-ray release of The Visitor features a new HD restoration from the original film materials. Complete tech specs and special features have yet to be revealed.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. This is undoubtedly the worst film I have ever seen. Bar none. How John Huston, Shelly Winters and Glen Ford all starred in this is beyond comprehension. But, it seems to have a cult following so there ya go.

I saw this film when it was first release in theatres and I should have drank a bunch of beers because it wouldn't have made a difference. My honest reaction was What the hell did I just watch- ?However maybe like PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE it will get a cult following for being so bad it is enjoyable.